How do you clean with a pumice stone?
It's an excellent question and we're going to talk about that today.
Hi there, I'm Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question
and I get to help you find an answer.
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All righty, onto today's session, which is about pumice stones.
Okay, so before we talk about how to clean with a pumice stone, let's talk about what
is a pumice stone?
Now, a pumice stone is hot lava that is mixed with water and then it hardens.
And so it's actually a chunk of stone.
And so because it's lava, it's all different kinds of consistencies.
And so pumice stones are really fine, and some have a really thick grit.
And so it's a stone, and so people like to clean with it and there are a lot of people
that have done a lot of damage with pumice stones.
And so people go in search of how do I clean with a pumice stone?
Okay, so now that we know what a pumice stone is,
let's talk about what a pumice stone is used for.
A pumice stone is not used for cleaning.
A pumice stone is used for scraping dead skin off of your hands and your feet.
And so how do you clean with it?
You clean with it inside your shower.
When you're naked and you have water running and the stone is wet and you are wet, and
then you can rub it on your dry hands and the heels of your feet that are dry, and you
can wash off and brush off that dead skin.
Now, another thing about pumice stones is you can also rub it along the sides of your
legs and it almost acts as a razor.
So instead of yanking the hair out, it brushes it off.
So it's an easy way, instead of just using a razor, to shave your legs.
Okay, so about pumice stones for house cleaners.
I'm not a fan.
I've never been a fan of pumice stones.
If there's one thing you will never find in my cleaning kit, it is a pumice stone.
Here's the reason why.
A pumice stone is a stone. And there are very few surfaces in the house
that you can rub stones on and not damage them.
Now, there are people that will swear by pumice stones and they're like,
"Oh, I use them all the time and I'm an expert at it and whatever." Okay.
This goes back to the running with scissors concept.
When you're very small and you're this tall, your mother will tell you,
"Don't run with scissors," because in the back her mind,
she knows that you could fall and the scissors
can go through the bottom of your chin or something horrible or you can poke your eye
out, and that would not be a good idea, okay?
So it's sound advice.
Now, having said that, is it impossible to run with scissors?
No, it is possible.
And if you have a leather sheath to put those scissors in and you are trained to run with
scissors, okay that's a different story.
But for the most part, the general population, most people,
it's not a good idea to run with scissors.
So the general population, most people, not a good idea to use pumice stones.
Now, there is common sense associated with pumice stones.
You can say well, "There are rings in the toilet and so since the ring is so bad in
the toilet, I can use this pumice stone and it will scrape the ring off."
That is true, that is true.
If your pumice stone is wet and you use it inside a wet toilet bowl, you will scrape
the ring off the toilet bowl.
You will also scrape off the porcelain on the inside of the toilet bowl.
And then from here through infinity, you can only use pumice stones to get rid of the next
ring that comes inside the toilet bowl that now is going to settle because it doesn't
have that porcelain veneer, right?
You've scraped it off.
So now that ring is going to be more susceptible to stains in the future.
All right.
Having said that, how do you get a ring off the inside of a toilet bowl?
They do make chemicals like hydrochloric acid, which are designed to burn off that ring around
the inside of the toilet bowl without harming the porcelain.
Now, it's not non-toxic, but neither is the ring inside your toilet, right?
If you want to get rid of that unsightly ring, there are times you may have to use some stronger
type of chemical.
And then from here throughout, you can use non-toxic products to maintain that.
So for that one-time cleaning, you may have to use an abrasive chemical.
Okay, having said that, let's go back to pumice stones for a minute.
There are house cleaners that, because there's hype on the internet and hype comes from people
who are selling pumice stones ... The hype comes from you can use it on this, that, and
the other, and they use them on glass tabletops, they use them on shower doors, they use them
on ovens and stoves, and they damage all kinds of appliances.
So it's like the running with scissors concept.
The general population does not know how to use pumice stones.
And so if you send your employees out into the field and they have pumice stones, you're
counting on their common sense.
You are assuming they have been trained to run with scissors, and as a business owner,
you are responsible if they trip and fall.
So what that means is if your employees go out into the market and they use a pumice
stone on someone's microwave or their stainless steel refrigerator, don't laugh at me because
this happens all the time, and then they're like, "Ah!
Oh my gosh, I scratched it!
What do I do now?"
Uh, you replace it, that's what you do, that's why you have insurance, so that you can replace
appliances when your employees using pumice stones damage them from the customer's houses.
All right, now that we've had that talk, let me suggest this.
If you don't replace the stuff that you damaged from customers, the customers might say, "It's
not a big deal, that's fine."
But they see it every single time they go to open their refrigerator door and they see
that it's all scratched, and they think of you every single time they open their refrigerator
door, and in the back of their mind, even at an unconscious level, they're like, "Wow,
what a boneheaded house cleaner I had to come in and to scratch my stainless steel appliance
with a pumice stone.
Who does that?"
So the answer is don't, please don't, please, please, please, please don't use pumice stones
to scratch surfaces.
Pumice stones are stones.
They are not scrub brushes.
And even if you have a really fine grit, there are so many things that can go awry.
And to say it's okay to run with little scissors versus big scissors,
it's just not a good idea.
So for the most part, not a good idea.
It's not scalable, it's not duplicatable, and it's just not wise.
So I'm not recommending pumice stones for cleaning unless you're cleaning yourself and
you have really thick, dead, dried skin that you're trying to refresh.
So for a person, yes, because your skin is resilient and it will bounce back.
And as you slough off that dead skin, you're good to go.
But for toilets, for sink basins, for stoves, for refrigerators, for glass, for wood floors,
please don't.
Please don't.
And it's not designed for fiberglass either.
All righty, that's my two cents.
And until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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